Dick Harris

[Supply, March 14th, 2002]

Madam Speaker, I thank the member for South Shore for supporting our motion today. Some of the comments that he made about the Liberal government sitting on the stump while the SLA was about to expire were questioned by the parliamentary secretary. He said that up to two years before the expiry of the SLA the government knew that there was a consensus among the provinces to let it run out. That is what it did. That is the poorest form of leadership that I could possibly imagine.

If the federal government had any idea about the consequences of letting that run out without any plan A once it did run out, it would have advised the provinces on issues of international trade as important as this. It was up to us, as the federal government, to work out details in co-operation with the provinces and the United States before it ran out. It should have told the provinces about the peril that was awaiting the expiry of the SLA. However, it did not. It sat on the stump.

Does the member for South Shore not think that the Liberal government showed a complete lack of management on this issue at the time the parliamentary secretary said that it was on the job?

[Supply, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I was about to ask you to request that the member speak relevant to the motion. Thank you.

[Points of Order, March 12th, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, I should bring to your attention that this, by virtue of this incident that appears to be going the way of the PC Party, sets a precedent. It sets a precedent for any other agreement that has ever been made by the House leaders that is not carved in stone or written on paper.

As you know, the common process is that House leaders gather and reach an agreement. It is an honourable agreement that people are expected to abide with. From now and forever, for any agreement that was arrived at in a so-called honourable fashion by the House leaders, any party in the House could subsequently down the road say that it never really agreed to that and therefore it wants to have something happen that it prefers. No matter how we try to debate that, there will always be this precedent that we are talking about today.

What about the seating plan? That is something that we arrive at by general agreement. We do not sign a paper and say that this is the way the seating plan will go. We could very well stand up sometime during the day and say that the official opposition House leader never agreed to the seating plan, that we want the whole seating plan revisited and maybe we will agree on it and maybe we will not.

You have to understand the precedent that is set here. While members of the House are expected to be honourable in all things, it appears that when that honour does not serve their purpose they will have the opportunity, because of this precedent, to say that they never really did agree to that or that the agreement is off.

I need you to consider this and understand the very dangerous path that we could be going down in the House. It will place in jeopardy every future agreement that the House leaders make. They will be in severe jeopardy and that must not happen otherwise the House will simply become dysfunctional, more so than it is at times.

[Customs Officers, March 1st, 2002]

Mr. Speaker, the call for arming our border guards has fallen on deaf ears with this Liberal government. Once again customs officers are in the line of fire. They were called to detain a suspect at the Rainbow Bridge who tried to get into Canada using a fake passport. When the suspect became violent, Niagara police had to be called to physically remove this person from this country to be placed in custody with the American authorities.

The Americans arm their customs officers. One has to ask: how can our customs officers feel safe when the Liberal government refuses to acknowledge the security of our border and ports and the safety concerns of our customs officials? It is no wonder the Americans are putting troops on border checkpoints with Canada when the Liberal government refuses to give our custom officers the tools to do the job.

Will it take a customs officer being injured or killed in the line of duty before the government will take action to secure their safety? What will it take?

[Literary Works, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Secretary of State for Multiculturalism. I am wondering if the minister who imagined burning crosses on lawns in my riding knows real bigotry when she sees or hears it.

His Excellency Mr. Saul blames Canada and the west for the events of September 11 and he even blames Christian civilization for the Holocaust. Does the minister condone these bigoted, anti-western and anti-Christian statements?

[Literary Works, December 14th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on a day when bin Laden's guilt is an accepted fact around the world, His Excellency Mr. Saul contends that western democracies are to blame for the September 11 disaster.

If the government will not demand that the viceregal household desist from making comments like this, will it at least disassociate itself from such insidious remarks?

[Criminal Code, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am sure we could pass the bill right now.

My. hon. colleague spoke about education in the schools. I believe, and the government can correct me if I am wrong, that there is a provision in the bill or a recommendation in the committee report that funding would be provided to various organizations to ensure there is early education.

It should be a co-operative effort between the federal and provincial governments, with the federal government providing some obligated funding, which I think it certainly does not have a problem with, the provincial government is throwing in some. We will all work together and get this thing beat.

[Criminal Code, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, it was indeed quite a while before this legislation came before us. The issue of the interlock device was part of the original supply day motion discussion which became a government bill. We talked about this in committee. For whatever reasons, arguments developed in committee between some legal minds, and as everyone knows that whenever lawyers debate with each other things can be held up forever. This bill slipped through the cracks in the discussion of Bill C-82.

As far as support is concerned, I am sure we would not find a parliamentarian in this place who would not supportive of this bill. I know Bloc members have had some concerns about it, but at the end of the day they will be fully supportive of it because it is a good bill.

I will mention again without hesitation Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This is one of the most dedicated and hard-working organizations in the fight against impaired driving. However, there are a lot of other organizations with the similar vision of eradicating our highways of impaired drivers.

The more we can do on this issue, the better we will feel about the safety of our streets and communities. We will all sleep soundly and be proud that we contributed in the fight against drinking and driving.

[Criminal Code, December 7th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-46 because it is a completion of a number of steps that have been taken. There are more steps, but in the fight against impaired driving, every time we take a positive action in the House it is another step that will go a long way to saving lives and injuries as a result of impaired driving.

Back in the 36th session of parliament, I introduced a private member's motion recommending that the government have a complete review of the criminal code and how it affected impaired driving. We sat on the committee as it was being discussed and had some interesting debate.

That private member's motion then became a votable opposition supply day. For the first time in 13 years in the House of Commons, the federal government, took some very good leadership in allowing the motion eventually to become a reality. A review was made of the criminal code with respect to impaired driving and changes were made. I congratulate the government on that initiative.

At the same time, I have to point out that 13 years was a long time to drag our feet toward dealing with something as important as this, particularly when organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving had been petitioning members of parliament on a regular basis pointing out the need for the overview.

A profound change in thinking took place as a result of that exercise in dealing with the impaired driving issue. I congratulate all members of parliament for this change of attitude toward drunk driving. I believe that, until we got into looking at it in the House and in committee, there was a wide ranging attitude among many people, including parliamentarians, for whom perhaps impaired driving was described as a social ill. I do not fault them for that. I think it is more a lack of education than anything else. By the time we were through the exercise of dealing with impaired driving in the criminal code, I think it became clearly evident to every member of parliament, and indeed a whole lot of Canadians, that impaired driving was a serious crime.

If we have accomplished something in going from one broadly endorsed attitude to another, that is a very positive step. Again, I want to congratulate and commend organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the people who support that organization. I and a number of parliamentarians support it both financially and in spirit.

In the two previous bills we took some great leaps ahead in the fight against impaired driving. Keep in mind that impaired driving kills well over 1,000 people every year and injures in excess of 50,000 every year, just because someone gets behind the wheel when impaired and drives. I heard it incredulously called a mistake in the House a little earlier by a former colleague of mine. Driving while impaired is not a mistake. It is a crime.

The culpability or responsibility for getting behind the wheel begins the moment someone makes a decision to have a drink of alcohol. I do not accept the excuse, and I know the Ministry of Industry does not accept the excuse “I just wasn't thinking”. There is a time to think and that is before we take that first drink. The idea that it was an absence of thought, or a mistake or something just does not fly. It is a crime and if we commit that crime, there are consequences to it.

This bill will remind people of their culpability because they will know that if they get into their vehicle after drinking, they will to have to blow into this device. In fact, there would be a mapping device which would prevent someone else from blowing into it. My colleague from Elk Island had some concerns about that. However the first time people blow into the device they set the standard. It is like an eye scan or a fingerprint. No one else can blow into that device and try to trick it.

Of course we will support this bill. It is a good bill. It is another step in the fight against impaired driving. As parliamentarians know, this is very high on the wish list of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which has presented mountains of evidence as to why this device will do the job. I personally, as well as many parliamentarians, have seen the effectiveness of this. We know it is about as foolproof as we can possibly get. The records are there to show how it will stop impaired people from driving.

We will support the bill, as we supported Bill C-18 and Bill C-82.

Just before I close, there is another issue that is very high on the wish list of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That is the lowering of the BAC, the blood alcohol content, which determines whether a person is impaired or not. MADD has a very good case.

The problem we have is the BAC is at .08 right now. Every study in the world declares that at .08 we are impaired and should not be driving a car. Unfortunately, the courts and the legal system have allowed a margin of error of .02 or .03. Even though there exists no margin of error in the devices which record the blood alcohol content, through courtroom tactics defence lawyers have been able to build in this margin of error which means people cannot get a conviction on impaired driving unless the readout is at least .01.

Therefore, we maintain that if the legally impaired level is .08, let us take into consideration that .03 margin of error, lower the BAC to .05, let them have their .03 and we can start convicting at .08, where we should be, because these people are legally impaired and should not be driving.

I want to congratulate the government for introducing Bill C-46. I hope that it is passed speedily through the House and given speedy royal assent in the Senate. I encourage the government to follow this with another bill calling for the reduction of the BAC to .05. Let us get it to committee, get the experts and let us prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the BAC level should be lowered to .05.

[Nuclear Fuel Waste Act, December 4th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, Canadian Alliance members vote yes to the motion.